This invention relates to elevator control systems and more particularly to a customer participatory elevator control system which can change operation control and guide control to carry out operation control specifications on a trial basis and enable the user to participate in decision making in selection.
Conventionally, in the manufacture of the elevator control system, the elevator maker holds a conference with the customer to determine specifications of elevator operation control, hall call assignment control, guide control and information presentation control and the thus determined specifications are preset through programming or a like procedure.
However, after the elevator control system is delivered and installed for service, various kinds of requests of the customer are liable to take place.
For example, the request of the customer includes:
.circle.1 a request for changing the operation management form whereby the reference floor is desired to be changed from the first floor to the first basement; PA0 .circle.2 a request for changing the call assignment control whereby the full-up cage nonstop control, in which a cage loaded with 80% or more of the rated loading weight is regularly decided to be a full-up cage and inhibited from serving for halls, is changed such that in respect of an elevator which is 50% to 80% loaded or in which the degree of jam measured by an ITV sensor in terms of an area of cage floor occupied by passengers is 60% to 90%, nonstop is permitted as far as possible or control for suppressing assignment is added; PA0 .circle.4 a request for changing the information presentation control whereby a recently proposed scheme of display, in which a display panel indicator is used to display a predictive arrival time when the elevator service guide is in use and to display general living information such as a weather forecast and commercial information such as a diagram at a nearby station when the elevator service guide is not in use, is changed such that when the waiting time at the hall is long (during the occurrence of a longtime waiting), only the information which would be desired by the user (the above general living information and the like information) is displayed by taking into account a predictive elevator arrival time on the basis of the time zone, the degree of jam and service direction even in the event that the elevator service guide is in use.
.circle.3 a request for changing the guide control whereby a predictive arrival time digitally displayed on a panel indicator is changed to an analog guide display; and
In the past, the above request for changing the fundamental specifications is dealt with by designing a new program, testing the new program repetitively in a system equivalent to the delivered and installed elevator system and thereafter exchanging the old program with the new program. This procedure requires much labor and a high cost.
Under the circumstances, the applicant of the present application has proposed in JP-A-58-119567 a system for control of individual elevators which comprises an operation controller including an operation mode selection circuit and an operation command specification unit for setting specifications in accordance with the mode of operation, so that various structures of elevator control logic can be realized in the form of programs of high visibility which are well arranged. This proposal succeeds in facilitating the attending of the change of operation specifications after delivery but faces a problem such that the customer or maintenance engineer per se is not allowed to participate in correcting the elevator operation specifications.
Also, Japanese Patent Publication No. 56-37145 proposes a system for efficiently examining which method is the most excellent as hall call assignment algorithm. In this proposal, the elevator utilization condition and the like are transmitted to a simulator through a telephone line and thereafter movement of the elevator pursuant to simulation results is visually displayed, thus ensuring that quality of an improved method and characteristics of a new product can be confirmed.
In this manner, only the improved fundamental algorithm can be tested in advance but the elevator controller needs to be partly replaced with the new product.
Accordingly, the term for completion of actual improving work effected by carrying out, in response to requests for improvements, search, design of method and determination of changed/additional specifications and completion of confirmation of the degree of satisfaction with essential needs effected by conducting a search on actual performance and a questionnaire about easiness of handling approximately amounts to 3 months to one year in total, and consultation and tests can be accomplished only at the cost of a great expense.
Disclosed in JP-A-59-31266 and JP-A-59-48364 is a control system having a function to reserve events but this system can select only a method which can essentially comply with predeterminedly scheduled conditions, failing to immediately comply with the customer's needs which change in various manners.
The above prior art problems are due to the fact that the elevator maker does not have a counter-measure by which unexpected requests of the customer concerning the operation specifications can be dealt with easily.